


trust fall

by sparxwrites



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: BDSM, Body Image, Dom/sub, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Human Furniture, Non-Sexual Bondage, Non-Sexual Kink, Non-Sexual Submission, Power Dynamics, Rope Bondage, Safewords, Self-Worth Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-02-25 19:31:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2633600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lomadia lets Will keep his clothes on, the first time they do this. He's irrationally grateful for it – his clothing is his armour, after all, his waistcoat a breastplate and his shirt chainmail. But Lomadia doesn't try and strip him of it. Instead, she carefully takes the glasses from the top of his head as he sinks to his knees like his joints are made of rusting iron, and sets them down on a cluttered side table. "There," she says, brisk and businesslike; but her hand lingers in his hair, running through the blonde softness of it and mussing it up.</p><p>(In which Will tries to let himself be taken care of, and Lomadia waits and watches.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i don't really know what this is - i sat down to finish writing some things, and this came out instead. but it's mostly a result of [this art](http://desirecomes-desirefades.tumblr.com/post/102651573616/for-jay) (nsfw), [this song](http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=JDZaiM8oAOU#Daughter_-_Smother_Lyrics), and several things [imperfectkreis](http://imperfectkreis.tumblr.com) has written.

Lomadia lets Will keep his clothes on, the first time they do this. He's irrationally grateful for it – his clothing is his armour, after all, his waistcoat a breastplate and his shirt chainmail.

But Lomadia doesn't try and strip him of it. Instead, she carefully takes the glasses from the top of his head as he sinks to his knees like his joints are made of rusting iron, and sets them down on a cluttered side table. "There," she says, brisk and businesslike; but her hand lingers in his hair, running through the blonde softness of it and mussing it up.

He twitches away from it a little, instinct, and she tuts as she crouches down in front of him. “No,” she says, firmly, and that at least is easy enough for him to understand. “Stay still.” He can do that, he thinks, can stay still – but then her fingers wander to the neck of his shirt, and he freezes.

“Um,” he says, the words sticking in his throat, not sure how to tell her to stop without making her stop. He fumbles for words, struggles to remember how to say _slow down_. “Yellow.”

Lomadia smiles, lets her fingers freeze too, the tips of them barely brushing his skin. “I’m not taking it off,” she says, rubs the thumb of her free hand over the freckled curve of one cheekbone. “Just undoing a few buttons. Is that okay?”

Her eyes bore into his, warm and unyeilding, and he has to look away or risk drowning in promise of safety in them. He starts to force himself to say _yes_ , and then swallows it. “No,” he says, because he _needs_ to – and then, at the sharp look she gives him, adds, “Green.”

It’s okay to do this, he reminds himself, as Lomadia simply looks at him for a long moment. To say no and mean it, but also not. It’s okay to need this.

His attempts at self-reassurance help very little.

“Okay,” she says, eventually, voice even as she pries open the top two buttons of his shirt. “That’s okay.” She loosens his tie a little, slips it over his collar, and then tightens it against the bare skin. “Better.” Slipping two fingers under it to test the give of it, to test Will’s ability to breathe. “Is that good?”

Will pauses for a moment, thinks about it. The tie is a silky band of pressure against his skin, soft and shiny. The movement of it whenever Lomadia’s fingers twitch sends shivers down his spine. “Yes,” he says, quietly, leans into the touch of her knuckles against his throat ever so slightly. The open buttons of his shirt, he finds, don’t bother him as much as he thought they would.

She pulls away with a slight sigh, slipping fingers out from under his tie and standing up with an soft exhale. “Stay there,” she says, tapping the top of his head gently with with her fingertips. “I’ll be right back.” He can hear her behind him as she walks away, rummages through a cluttered table-top or drawer with a scattered rustle of clink-scrape-swish sounds.

Relaxing into the static irregularity of the noise, Will closes his eyes, lets his shoulders drop and his spine round as some of the punishingly formal posture he usually holds slips out of him. It’s only when something swishes through the air by his head that he half-jumps, eyes snapping open in faint alarm.

“Just rope,” Lomadia says, reassuringly, stood next to him again. She presses a loop of it against his cheek so he can feel the smooth, tight weave of it on his skin. “Nothing fancy. I’m going to tie your hands behind your back.”

Swallowing, Will nods, shifts his hands obediently behind his back and presses his wrists together where they’ve settled at the base of his spine without Lomadia even having to ask. She tuts again – but this time it’s a noise of pride, of pleasure, rather than admonition. “Such a good boy,” she says, and he flinches at the praise, unable to help himself.

He doesn’t see the way she frowns at the back of his neck, a faint downwards twitch of her lips as she circles behind him.

The first touch of calloused fingers against his wrist nearly makes him jump again, but he manages to hold himself still. It’s worth it for the way Lomadia hums her approval, a whisper of air he feels against his hair, and squeezes his wrist before wrapping the first loop of rope around it.

He doesn’t quite slump forwards when she binds his hands together, but it’s a close thing. The change in his posture is remarkable – his shoulders sloping downwards, the frown lines on his forehead smoothing out, all the tension and fight falling from his muscles. She strokes a hand over his shoulder and smiles at how malleable he is, swaying easily beneath her touch, jaw half-slack.

She’d only intended to bind his wrists; but she’s got plenty of rope left, and he exhales shakily when she pulls the bindings a little tighter, so she keeps going. It’s a simple pattern, a criss-cross weave of knots and twists that has Will relaxing into it further and further with every line of pressure as the ropes draw tight across his skin through his shirt.

“You really are a good boy,” says Lomadia, tying off the last knot near his shoulders before standing up to admire the picture of him. He’s knelt on the floor at her feet; bound and hazy-eyed and looking almost lost.  “Aren’t you?” She smiles, runs fingers through his hair again to turn it fluffed-up and messy, and this time he leans into the touch instead of trying to pull away. “Can you say that for me?”

She settles down into the worn armchair he’s knelt next to, reaching out a hand to pet his hair and tug him a little closer. He shuffles forwards at the coaxing, heedless of the way the floor scuffs at his trousers. “Can you say _I’m a good boy_?” It’s not supposed to be a difficult request.

“I’m-” Will starts, head pressed against her palm – and then stops, the words choking him.

He tries, tries so hard to get them out, but they lodge barbs into the soft inside of his throat and stick there, tearing. Even swallowing around them is a struggle. He tries to force them out, but they won’t come, a lie caught behind his teeth that he can’t quite bear to voice. “I-”

Pressing his forehead against Lomadia’s thigh, he tries to focus on the solid muscle of it rather than the way his shoulders have started to tremble. “I’m sorry. I’m _sorry_.”

She doesn’t reprimand him – doesn’t tell him it’s okay, either. Instead, her fingers settle a little more deeply into his hair, blunt nails tracing circles on his scalp that send waves of static down his back. She just waits, silent, listening to the soft, hitching noises of Will’s apologies muffled against her trousers.

“Red?” she asks, eventually, tugging a little on Will’s hair to try and lift his eyes to meet hers. He resists the motion, keeps his eyes on the wooden planks of the floor so Lomadia won’t see the shame in them. “Will, _look at me_.” There’s a kind of urgency to her voice, something he’d call anxious if it were anyone but her. “Red?”

He raises his head reluctantly, focuses on a bundle of drying grasses hanging from the ceiling to the left of and behind her so he won’t have to meet her eyes. “Yellow,” he says, voice low and rough, licking his lips. He can do this, he knows he can. “I’m-”

Lomadia nods, makes a shushing noise in the back of her throat – one designed to soothe rather than quiet. “Take your time,” she says.

Her calm, the lack of pressure or need to rush, helps. He bites down on the apologies, swallows hard. Licks his lips again. For a long moment, he just kneels there and _breathes_ ; feels his rib cage expand with every breath in, feels the ropes tug around his arms like a safety net, feels the hard floor against his knees and the hand in his hair and the silk of his tie around his throat.

Feels the warmth of Lomadia next to and above him, patient and waiting.

Finally, _finally_ , the words unstick enough for him to spit them out like stones. They taste bitter, a lie on his tongue that he doesn’t believe in, but he forces them out anyway. Lomadia asked him to, after all. “I’m- a good boy?” he says, rushes through the words and still doesn’t quite manage to stop them from sounding like a question.

It leaves him feeling drained, exhausted, and he slumps heavily against her leg before he can help himself – before he can remember he’s supposed to be staying still. Lomadia doesn’t seem to mind, though, tracing fingers along the line of his throat and jaw before patting his head gently.

“Yes,” she says, such warmth and pride in her voice that, for a second, he wants to stay here forever, warm and comfortable and with someone who _wants_ him. Her hand drops from his hair, circles around the back of his neck like a half-collar, and his eyes shut tight with something between sadness and longing. “Yes, you are.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> " **anonymous asked:** some more lomadia/will non-sexual bondage? or will with sexual bondage and anyone else. either/or, but i really like the way you write him when he's tied up.  <3"
> 
> i’d actually started a follow-up to that fic before you asked this, but it’s taken me forever to finish it. nonsexual bdsm is usually my comfort fic, but everything’s just so difficult to write at the moment…

It’s their fourth session by the time Lomadia manages to strip Will of his shirt.

“Safeword?” she asks, as he drops to his knees by her feet as per usual. He clasps his hands behind his back without her having to ask, white-knuckled fingers laced neatly together as he tries to squeeze the nerves out of himself. Smiling, she pets his head by way of reward, fingernails gentle against his scalp until some of the tension eases out of him.

It takes a moment for him to reply, distracted by her fingers in his hair, soft and soothing. “Red for stop, yellow for slow down, green for go,” he repeats obediently, eyes dropping to the floor and tongue darting out to sweep nervously over his lower lip. He’s gotten more comfortable around Lomadia since the first time they did this, far more comfortable, but there’s still an edge of skittishness to him that she can’t quite iron out.

Lips quirking up with pleasure at his compliance, Lomadia scratches nails a little harder over his skin, feels him shiver under her hand. Will’s not much one for pain, she’s found, but carefully applied sensation seems to break him apart just as easily. “And what are you?”

“A- I’m a good boy.” He still sounds unconvinced, but he gets the words out without choking on them, manages them without breaking eye contact. It’s progress, and she grins with it, rubs work-roughened fingers against the soft underside of his chin and watches him preen with it.

“You are indeed,” she agrees, easily. “Hands behind your back.”

It’s a familiar command by now, one issued at the beginning of each session, and he complies enthusiastically – settles more comfortably on his knees, presses his wrists together loosely in the small of his back, and waits. Somewhere to his left, he hears Lomadia digging in a chest for rope, and then padding over to crouch behind him, but he doesn’t see it. Having his eyes closed, he’s found, makes the anticipation sweeter, the first touch of soft rope to his skin that much better.

When she tugs the first set of loops tight, though, pulls the rope flush against the skin and moves to start on the weave that will line up his arms, he winces. It’s a small motion, the barest of twitches before he forces himself to stillness, but it’s still there.

Lomadia catches it, of course, the same way she catches everything Will does during these little sessions of theirs – she keeps a close eye on him, since he seems incapable of doing so himself. “Will?” she says, quietly, letting a little slack into the ropes. When he doesn’t respond, she reaches up to touch the side of his cheek, tapping two fingers against the skin there. “Strife. Look at me.”

When he still refuses to meet her eye, she slips the ropes off his wrists and stands up, circling around until she can grab his chin. “Strife?” Even when she tugs his face up to point towards hers, he can’t quite meet her gaze, and she resists the urge to grind her teeth at his obstinacy. “Right, shirt off. _Now_.”

“No,” he says quickly, _too_ quickly, tongue darting out to lick his lips. His eyes flick to hers for the barest of seconds, and then away again.

It may be a _no_ , but it’s not _red,_ so she doesn’t stop. Instead, she digs fingers harder into his jaw line, until he winces again. “ _Shirt off_ ,” she repeats, words edged in a growl. This time, there’s no room for denial.

She half-expects him to safeword, to end the scene or at least slow it. But, instead, he reaches obediently for his tie, tugs the knot out of it and discards it to one side, before starting on his waistcoat. His fingers move down the front of it slowly, carefully unpicking each button, eyes shut and jaw clenched tight.

By the time he shrugs his shirt off, he’s shaking, hands trembling as he tugs his arms out of the sleeves and lets the crimson fabric fall to the ground. His chest and stomach are speckled with the same points of green light that his arms and face are, a spreading glow around them like thumbprints pressed into his skin, and he hunches under her scrutiny, hands curled tight into fists like he’s fighting the urge to cover himself.

Lomadia circles him, slowly, stuck between the desire to praise him for the progress he’s made, for obeying her, and the knowledge that he’s guilty and trying to hide something. It’s not hard to work out what it is, once she moves round to his back – there’s a bruise there, half-healed to a strange mix of purple and green, spreading between his left shoulder and the line of his spine like a blot of ink.

“Strife,” she says, calmly, too calmly, and watches him brace in expectation of anger. “What’s this?”

“...Accident in the power suit,” he mutters, barely loud enough to be heard, head ducked and eyes on the floor. “It was a few days ago, I didn’t think-” He cuts himself off, aware that now is not the time to be offering excuses, and Lomadia bites her tongue to resist pointing out that no, evidently he _didn’t_ think.

Instead, she hums thoughtfully, petting at Will’s other shoulder as she considers how to work with this. “You should have told me.” There’s ice in her voice, maybe too much from the way Will cringes, eyes squeezing shut – or perhaps just enough. He _should_ have told her, could have gotten hurt if she hadn’t noticed, and she can’t have him making a habit of hiding things from her.

“I-” he starts, swallows, and exhales slowly. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Yes,” she says, “you should be.” She waits just long enough for his shoulders to hunch, rising towards his ears in guilt and shame, before clicking her fingers in front of his nose until his eyes open. “Hands out. I’m not tying them behind your back if it’s going to hurt you, but we can try in front.”

The tension rushes out of him like a wave, shoulders falling, eyes wide and almost amazed with gratitude before he catches himself, pulls on the mask he always wears that _irritates_ her so. “Thank you,” he says, almost gasping the words as he moves his hands in front him, presses his wrists together with palms upturned like an offering.

“You’ll tell me if it hurts.” The words aren’t a request, but Strife nods his head in agreement anyway. When Lomadia touches his head by way of reward, he leans into it, presses against her fingers and makes a small noise in the back of his throat.

She catches his wrists, binds them with an ease and speed born of practice and familiarity. Loops of rope coiled against the skin, tight enough to feel but loose enough to keep the blood flowing, careful knots to hold them in place, and the spare rope wound up his forearms until it’s used up. By the time she’s finished, his eyes have gone hazy and heavy-lidded, gaze distant

There’s still a length of rope left, and after a moment’s consideration she reaches for his neck, tugging him towards her. He leans with the touch, lets her move him, holds still as she wraps the rope neatly around his throat and ties knots until it’s settled heavy and oddly comforting around the base of his neck.

“Next time, I’ll put you in a chest harness,” she says thoughtfully, slipping fingers under the collar of rope to check he can breathe easily. She feels the way his breath hitches at the words, and snorts quiet amusement, brushing a hand down his torso and watching his freckles brighten around her touch.

For all his skittishness, Strife is surprisingly easy to read.

Standing up, she pulls a face at the way her knees ache, her back threatens to crack. She stretches, arms above her head and eyes fixed on the way Strife is perfectly still other than his breathing and the slight back-and-forth sway of his torso, and contemplates what to do with him.

“Down,” she says, eventually, voice even. He turns his head slowly, blinks at her with a dazed sort of confusion, and she can’t help smiling, reaching forward to run fingers through his hair. “Down,” she repeats, and sighs when he just leans into her touch, rests his forehead against her hip and exhales in a slow whine. “No, no, not like that.”

She has to guide him into it, wrap a hand around the back of his neck over the collar and push him forward and down, careful of his injured shoulder and watching for the slightest sign of pain. But he doesn’t twitch, doesn’t flinch – just slides easily under her touch until his elbows touch the floor, body curled over them and spine a smooth curve as he rests on knees and forearms.

“Good boy,” she murmurs, stroking the flat of one palm down his back and watching him shiver at the warmth of skin against skin. “Such a good boy for me, aren’t you?”

The only response she gets is a whine that might be a _yes_ , might be a plea for more contact, but it’s good enough. She stays there for a long minute, petting him, feeling him unwind beneath her hand and melt into the touch, into the ropes, huffing out small, soft sounds.

It’s almost a shame he’s not into pain, Lomadia thinks, when she straightens up and settles into the armchair next to his curled form on the floor. He’d look beautiful with marks across his back, the reddened lines of a flogger to compliment the pale green of his freckles, the warm tones of his skin. Still, she works with what she has, and what she has is something beautiful. She’s not complaining.

At her feet, Strife makes a small, muffled noise against the floor at the lack of contact, forehead pressed against the lacquered wood planks. “Shh,” she soothes, bending down to touch fingers to his head as she lifts her feet and carefully positions them on his back, a living footrest. “Shh, it’s ok. Settle down.”

He quiets at the renewed contact, even when she pulls her hand away, soothed by the feel of her skin against his and the weight along his spine. Between that and the ropes, soft and heavy around his wrists and throat, he’s content to kneel there and be useful and let himself float in the still quiet that his mind has become. Lomadia hums her satisfaction as she picks up a book from the side table, murmurs, “Good boy,” again, and the heat that floods through him at the words is almost unbearably good.

She’s barely been settled ten minutes – Strife breathing slow and even at her feet, the quiet broken only by the occasional whine that slips out on an exhale and the rustle of her turning pages – before the door slams open.

Unsurprisingly, it’s Nilesy in the doorway, hair wild and eyes wide with familiar panic. “Lom-” he starts, before freezing when he notices the curled human at her feet, pink tinging his cheeks and some of the frantic light dying from his eyes as he tries and fails not to stare. “Oh. Um. Sorry, Lom, didn’t realise you had a- guest over. Hi, Strife.”

“It’s fine, Nilesy.” She feels Will squirm beneath her feet, an uncomfortable and anxious shifting, and sighs. Pressing a heel against his shoulder blade to try and soothe him a little, she smiles when he settles again – although the tension in his spine stays. “What’s wrong?”

Nilesy’s eyes dart between Strife and Lomadia for a second, unable to help himself and stop staring, before he shakes his head. “Uh- nothing. Um, nothing urgent, anyways. Definitely nothing on fire, it’s- I can deal with it, have a nice time with Strife, bye!”

The door shuts very nearly _before_ he’s through it, and Lomadia’s lips thin into something disapproving that’s trying very hard not to be a smile. “If something _is_ on fire, I’m going to set _him_ on fire,” she says, shaking her head. “That boy, I swear…”

She leans down to pet Strife, blunt nails against his scalp, and sighs when she drags fingers down to his shoulders and feels tension still coiled there. “Oh, hush.” Leaning back into the chair, she picks up her book again, peering at Will over the top of it. “Nilesy’s not going to think any less of you for this – he gets on all fours for me often enough that he’d be something of a hypocrite if he did.”

“You…?” Will twists his head towards her until his cheek is pressed against the wooden floor, blinking up at her in mild surprise. He’d known Lomadia played with other people, but he’d never considered _Nilesy_ as a possible candidate. “Oh.”

Lomadia grins. “I’m not being entirely metaphorical when I talk about keeping him on a tight leash,” she says, bends down to pet fingers through his hair until he shifts so his forehead is against the floor again. “Shh, don’t worry about it. Relax.”

It’s gratifying to feel him go liquid again, soft and pliant beneath her touch as if the warmth of her hand is enough to melt him. “There we go,” she murmurs, presses fingers against the soft glow of his neck and smiles at the way he exhales slowly, softly. “There we go.”

 


End file.
